My Integrated Design 5 class has ended, but I intend to continue moving Operation H.A.U.N.T. forward with Allied Media in the hopes of making it a reality. After transcribing the interview with SmithGroupJJR, I summarized some of the major points and revised the questions to better suit the scope and purpose of my project. Here is the Q&A dialogue:

 

What essential roles does a building play in educating the public?

1. Cropping mechanism – with infinite knowledge comes a need to narrow down and focus on pieces of information one at a time. The building is a controlled space which helps provide that sense of consistency within its walls.
2. Landing Pad – the building provides a concrete location for people to routinely gather, seeing the same school every day, adding to that sense of consistency for a regimen.
3. Backdrop – the building provides resources which define what kind of education takes place within the building, setting the stage for anything from listening to a 1-person lecture to student project collaborations.

 

How does the form of a building affect how people are educated?

1. Large vs. Small – a small building offers a more controllable environment, which is useful for small communities or more specific training and education within a large community. A large building offers the potential to house enough students for interaction between a wider range of age groups and backgrounds helps prepare students for the diversity of the working world.
2. Single Building vs. Campus – A single building school is usually structured to have all of the students learning the same thing and a little bit of everything. A campus will fragment the education, allowing each building design to be tailored to more specific areas of study.
3. Accessibility – Education needs to be accessible, especially in Detroit, whether people travel to a building to learn or the education is brought to the student. The building can be small in size, but provide access to online and digital information from anywhere, increasing the building’s virtual accessibility, even if the physical form is unchanged.

 

How do abandoned areas weaken the educational roles that a building can provide?

 

1. Loss of interaction – education cannot take place in a building without people to participate in teaching or learning.
2. Loss of resources – without anyone to maintain some sort of organization or security, the building can lose some of its structure for education or even keeping the building itself safe and standing.
3. Loss of value – the former owners, or as is usually the case in Detroit, the banks, no longer find value in the building, so the building is no longer used, and often left to rot.

 

How can abandoned areas benefit the educational roles that a building can provide?

1. Drawing attention – vacancy is often highlighting. People don’t always realize that something was there until it’s gone or vacated. Think about how much attention Michigan Central Station gets.
2. Historical curiosity – people naturally want to learn about a building’s history, particularly when it’s no longer taking place, like looking at the ruins of a Roman Temple. People are still learning from that.
3. Invitation for opportunity – as soon as one organized structure moves out, the building becomes available as a resource, ready to be taken and used by a new occupant, like a hermit crab moving from one shell to another.

 

These questions will serve as an example of the kind of discussion Operation H.A.U.N.T. will be designed to initiate. While displaying the actual question on the building may be a little too straightforward, my next challenges will be to find a way to introduce the questions in a more open-ended and interpretive way, and also to make people feel more comfortable stepping forward and joining the discussion, as it may be disconcerting for some people to see their own faces blown up on the façade of a building.

I filmed my final class presentation last Wednesday, but I won’t be able to upload the video until I get back from my vacation in New Mexico on the 4^th of August. So stay tuned. My YouTube channel is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIxZr0vCqpWJsI0q5bcygig